Recently there has been a popular social media post1 going around about an economics professor that used grade equalizing to “prove” that “Obama’s socialism” does not work.
What this professor did was to say that the test grades in the course would be used to represent money and that he (the professor) would average every student's test grades after every test and whatever the average for the whole class was, would be the score for that everyone in the entire class would receive for that test grade.
As the semester went on the grades kept getting lower and lower and in the end everyone in the class failed the course, apparently “proving” that a government (represented by the professor) cannot simply demand equality and average income because, as we saw, everyone would "fail".
While this may, at first, seem like a very simple, logical, and inspiring lesson, there was one main thing that this professor failed to note (or chose to omit - which seems to be a common symptom with people who like to teach people lessons). This professor did not bother to actually structure the class as a society, and more importantly, did not bother to structure the class like our society. Which means that his grade equalizing model was not tested on a correct structure.
To fix this problem, I present to you:
How Our Society Works: an educational example
Here is what the professor (or any professor) should have done to really test what is going on within our society:
The first thing that should have been done is for the professor to split his class into different assigned groups and teach then to teach each of the specific groups on different days of the week.
The first group, being taught on the first day of the week, would consist of about 1/3 of the male students in the class and about 1 or two females. This class would be taught with the professor’s full ability; a full syllabus with all rules, expectations and deadlines is handed out, sample assignments given out, homework question-and-answer sessions, and even a tutor to help outside of class hours.
The second group, being taught on a different day of the week, would consist of another 1/3 of the male students, and about 1/2 of the female students. This class would be taught the basics of the course, but nothing too in depth, only a syllabus with deadlines is handed out, no sample assignments given out, and if a student had any questions about anything the professor would suggest making an appointment to meet during his office hours, when the professor might be available.
The third group, being taught on the last day of the week, would consist of all but two of the last 1/3 of the male students, and all but two of the last 1/2 of the female students. This class would not be taught by the professor, but would instead be taught by a first year graduate student who doesn’t actually understand the material, there is no syllabus and no sample assignments, the class would only be about 15 minutes, and anyone in this class was only allowed to ask the graduate assistant questions about anything, and only in class.
The fourth group consists of two male students and two female students. This group is not allowed to come into class and can only contact the graduate assistant for help (if they can find out who the graduate assistant is since they are not getting a syllabus because they are not allowed in class).
Then, after ensuring that the class has been divided as noted above, the professor would proceed to give the exact same assignments to all four groups, the exact same exams to all four groups, have the exact same expectations and deadlines for all four groups, and would thus grade all of the students on the exact same scale.
This is the structure of our society that we, in the United States, and much of the West, have now.
Furthermore, if we really want to give an example of "Obama's socialism" (which is a bit ludicrous because President Obama is, like all other Democrats and Republicans, a devout capitalist) using the classroom as an example, what the professor should have done is to provide more assistance to those who need more help to get better grades, not just equalize the grades...no politician will ever vote to have their money taken away!
1 - below is the entirety of the post copied from a facebook post yesterday (February 23, 2013)
“An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.
To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. Could not be any simpler than that. (Please pass this on) These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.
Can you think of a reason for not sharing this?
Neither could I.”
No comments:
Post a Comment